The Man Who Came Too Late
by Double Dog
Summary: Sometimes we wait too long to say the things that matter.  Warning:  This is a deathfic, although the death has occurred in the past.


"Can I help you?" Cameron asks, and House glances away from the whiteboard to see who she's talking to. 

The man in the doorway of the Diagnostics conference room is tall, maybe even an inch or two taller than House. He's dressed in jeans and scuffed leather work boots, a dark blue t-shirt with a lighter blue chambray workshirt thrown over it. A backpack is slung over one shoulder. He's lean, and his face has that worn, pinched look of someone who's undergone a lot of hardship; who'd come out wobbly and precarious but alive on the other side.

In short, he looks like a lot of the people who come and go from Princeton-Plainsboro.

The guy looks at Cameron, then lets his gaze roam over the rest of the assemblage. His eyes linger briefly on House, then squint at the small rectangle of white paper in his right hand.

"I'm sorry," he says hesitantly. "I'm looking for Dr. James Wilson? I gave the guards my name downstairs and showed them this, and they all told me to come here." He waves the piece of paper helplessly, as if signaling with a white flag.

House rolls his eyes.

"What -- you one of his cancer patients?"

The man blinks.

"No! No ... not that. I'm -- " He stops talking as Cameron takes the small card.

House watches as her brows draw together; she frowns and hands the card to him without a word. He looks at it and makes a soft growling noise in his throat.

It's an old business card, the edges soft and tattered, the black inkprint almost rubbed off in a few places but still legible.

_JAMES E. WILSON, M.D._, it reads. _DEPARTMENT OF ONCOLOGY_. Below that is the name of the hospital and its address. Wilson's office phone and fax number. His pager number.

"I'm sorry," the man says. "I know he works here, and I tried to find him on my own, but I didn't see his name listed anywhere and --"

"This is an old card," House interrupts. "From before he became Department Head. Who the hell are you and what are you doing here?"

"House ... " Cameron murmurs gently.

"I'm sorry," the man says again. "I know I should have called first, or gone to his apartment, but I thought it would be better if we met on ... neutral ground." A look of deep sadness crosses the man's face, and his next words are tinged with regret. "Our last meeting -- didn't go so well." He scuffs at the carpet with one rough sole.

"If you could tell me where he is," he says softly. "I just want to talk to him."

There's a long silence in the conference room. House looks at the guy more closely, and after a moment mentally kicks himself. He should've known ...

"Yeah, well, good luck with that," he says at last. He feels someone's hand on his elbow -- Cameron? Chase? -- and shakes it off. He turns away from the man and all that he represents.

"You're eleven years too late. Your brother was killed in a car crash two weeks ago."

And after that, of course, everything falls apart.

* * *

"He never stopped looking for you, you know," House says conversationally. "It's David, right? You're David?"

Wilson's older brother nods. The two men are sitting on House's balcony; David's expression is still one of dazed shell-shock so House plows blithely ahead.

"Took me a while to figure out what he was doing, where he was going. Finally followed him late one afternoon -- we'd lost a patient, a homeless woman named Victoria -- Jimmy was acting like she'd meant something to him."

He leans back in his chair. David's hands are trembling slightly.

"Turned out it wasn't a she that was on his mind, it was a he. His long-lost, homeless brother. You."

David looks away.

"Jimmy went into some pretty rough neighborhoods looking for you," House observes. "I'd watch and keep my distance -- a couple of times I thought I was going to have to call 911, but Jimmy always managed to talk his way out of trouble." He pauses and takes a sip of coffee. It's cold. "Sometimes he'd go farther afield. I could always tell when because the next morning he'd come in looking just a little more tired, a little more worn down."

He glances at the other man; David's head is bowed and he's rubbing at the back of his neck with his right hand.

_Good_, House thinks, and feels a stab of vicious satisfaction.

"Sometimes he'd go out three or four times in the same month, out to that same street corner where he said he'd seen you last." House's voice is low and hard. "I guess those were like anniversaries, right? Of when you'd skipped out? I'm right, aren't I? He kept hoping you'd turn up, and so --"

"Shut up," David whispers. "Please, just ... shut up."

"Everyone came to the funeral," House continues relentlessly. "Your mom, your dad, Jonathan -- you remember him, don't you? Jimmy's brother who _didn't_ run away?"

David's face is white in the rapidly fading daylight, and still House presses on.

"Lots of hospital people were there. Even some of his patients who've been in remission for a while. Hell, even his ex-wives came. You know why?" He leans forward in the chair, inches away from David. "Because Jimmy was easy to love. For everyone except you. You made it hard. You pushed him away. Why did you do that? Were you afraid of something? _What were you so afraid of?"_

_"Shut UP!"_ David yells, and out of the corner of his eye House can see Chase and Foreman glance outside in concern.

"You're _pathetic,"_ House growls. "I need a drink." He stands and hobbles to the balcony door.

"Everything going okay out there?" Foreman asks cautiously as House clatters around, retrieving the bottle of scotch he keeps in the bottom desk drawer.

"What do _you_ think?" House straightens back up and looks at the liquor bottle with a critical eye. He sets it down on his desk and grabs two shot glasses from the drawer.

"I think you're being your usual asinine self, giving family members hell."

House grips the shot glasses with his cane hand, using his thumb and index finger, and holds the bottle with the other. He pivots neatly and fixes his gaze on Foreman.

"He's not family," House says. "He forfeited that right a long time ago when he walked out."

He pushes open the balcony door with his shoulder and lets it ease shut behind him.

* * *

David's head is in his hands, but he looks up when he hears the clink of the glasses on the balcony wall. House has twisted the cap off the bottle and is already pouring the second glass when he speaks.

"No thanks," David says. "I ... had a lot of addictions. Had to give them up."

House keeps pouring his own glass, the amber liquid rising in level until he's got at least a double.

"Good for you," he snarls. "I've still got all mine." He remains standing and takes a sip of the whiskey, welcoming the fire as it burns its way down.

"So why'd you leave?" he asks abruptly. "All your _addictions_ get to be too much? Asking for money? Idiotic stunts?"

David looks at him, astonished.

"Jamie wouldn't have told you any of those things!"

"No, he wouldn't have. But _you_ just did."

David winces.

"Why are you doing this?" he says, but from the tone it's a rhetorical question and House doesn't answer at first. David brushes the back of one hand across his eyes, and for just a moment House feels sorry for him. Then he remembers -- _Jimmy's dead_ -- and he grows cold again.

"Because you fucked him over but good," he snaps. "You were never there when he needed you. Never there when he wanted to talk, to have a real conversation about something." House takes a deep swallow of scotch and almost chokes on the bitter liquid. "He deserved better than you."

House never sees the punch coming.

* * *

_"Oh shit oh shit oh God I'm sorry oh God are you okay? oh fuck I'm so sorry -- "_

House opens first one eye, then the other. David's panicked face is directly above his own, and his hands are waving all over the place, just like ...

"Stop apologizing and find my cane," he says. "I think you knocked it over there."

David's face disappears, and in a moment House feels the solid, reassuring weight of his cane pressed into his right hand.

"Thanks," he mutters, and uses it as a staff to push himself to his feet. He drops back into a balcony chair and wiggles his jaw experimentally.

David ducks his head. "I'm sorry," he says again.

"Don't be," House replies. "I'm pretty sure I deserved it."

* * *

"How fucked up is this?" David muses quietly. It's twilight, and House can see the angles and planes of his face in the shadows. He kicks himself again.

_That long nose, those high cheekbones -- how did I not see it the minute he walked in?_

David, apparently deciding he's not going to get an answer, rambles on.

"I mean, after all this time I finally get up the courage to see Jamie, to talk to him -- and he's dead. It's too late." He turns, looking for House's reaction, but House has drawn back into the shadows. "Isn't that fucked up?"

"If you say so. What matters is that you were going to say something."

David shakes his head. "Does it?" He looks again for House.

"What were you to him?" he asks. "You've been talking like you knew him so well -- you must have been a good friend to Jamie."

House slams the whiskey glass down on the arm of his chair, so hard that for a moment he fears he's broken it.

"Don't say that," he hisses. "Don't ever say that. I was a lousy friend to your brother."

"I don't believe that," David says.

"Believe what you want," House mutters. "It's the truth."

"Then what were you?"

House takes another long swallow of scotch.

"I was the guy in the office next door," he says. "That's all."

* * *

House watches the night sky. The bottle of scotch has been considerably depleted.

David is long gone, apologizing again for the blow that knocked House flat on his back. He promised to call, to write, all those words about _keeping in touch_, but House knows he never will.

Venus has risen, a sparkling bright ice chip on the dark horizon. There's something different about it tonight; the planet looks curiously _doubled_, as if it's a binary star ...

_Of course_, House thinks, remembering his astronomy charts. _Mercury, in its greatest eastern escape from the Sun._

The twinned planets hang in the sky -- Venus the great glowing giant; Mercury its smaller companion, trailing after the larger like a little brother.

House hasn't cried since he learned of Wilson's death, and he sternly commands himself not to start now.

So he thinks about families instead, and good intentions, and how nice tries don't count. He watches as the rest of the stars come out, and blind him with their light until he can't see Venus and Mercury anymore.

fin


End file.
